Generation starships and their internal society structure

[Doc]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Personally I think the organization of the Hutterite societies needs to be studied as a model' date=' AFAIK they are the only one of the 19th century Utopian experiments that's survived into the 21st century. Problem is they do have emigration as a safety valve.[/quote']

 

Indeed, it seems to be worth a look.

 

 

 

No examples leap to mind. My family is still feeling the effects of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic.

 

Geez... Sorry for that.

 

In the Erma Felna graphic novels, the various planetary societies bear imprints created by the generation ships. For one thing, being a good Samaritan is not just a good idea, it's the law.

 

In the US, you need laws to protect good Samaritans, since there is a regrettable history of people stopping to help injured persons, and later wind up being sued in court by the same people they helped. So being a good Samaritan is discouraged.

 

In the US, if you were on a road trip and happened to pass by a dam, and noticed there was a large crack in it, and you told nobody, well, you could always say it wasn't your job to be a dam inspector. The town downstream of the resulting flood would be upset, but they can't pin it on you.

 

In a generation starship, if you walk pass the outer hull, and noticed a tiny crack where the air was leaking out, and you told nobody, well, you are endangering the lives of every single person on the entire generation ship. By ship law, you are required to raise the alarm, otherwise you are guilty of reckless endangerment of the community.

 

After a few generations of this, it will be an integral part of the planetary colony's laws once the ship arrives at its destination.

 

 

Indeed again, but that king od law doesn't necessitate an authoritarian regime, though. For instance, there are laws that make mandatory to help people in difficulty as long as your life isn't threatened in Canada. As I live there, I can assure you that Canada's not comparable to North Korea when it comes to authority...

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that the Black Death killed off feudalism. But it certainly gave it one good hard kick in the testicles - in EUROPE. Chinese Feudalism experienced no such event.

 

The ultimate killer of Feudalism in Europe was a combination of long- and medium-distance trade, rise of the trading "middle class", military pressure from alternative lifestyles (notably the then-rising second islamic Renaissance) and the slow spread of education among the populace.

 

Likewise, neither do I assume that religion is destined to keep the populace down - but I defy anyone to say that it has not been used, often, for exactly that purpose.

 

Okay: here's the thing. Way back in the late 1600s when people (mainly French monks: it's a long story that we probably don't understand) got interested in the documentary sources for history produced between, say, 500AD and 1200AD, this paradigm of a "Feudal age" developed. Towards the end of the 1700s, the rising French structural deficit led to a surge of what we now recognise as political science. An evolutionary theory of history emerged according to which humanity was progressing from one level of government to another. Stop me if you'd hear this one:

--Bands of hunters

--Tribes of nomad

--chieftaindoms of village farmers

--"God kingships" of capital/village societies

--"Feudal" societies of city/castle dualities

--"Absolute monarchies" of modern fiscal-police states

--Something that might come next

Of course, what came next was the French revolution, and a great philosopher on an off day (G. W. F. Hegel) postulated that the final stage had actually arrived

--"The Liberal State and the End of History"

Thanks to Hegel's enormous influence, we tend to take a short cut and label this philosophy of history as "Hegelian."

And by "we," of course, I mean a young man named Karl Marx, who was told that according to this theory, there could be no more revolutions, and that he should give up on punk rock and get a banking job. This made Karl very sad, and he thought and he thought, and suddenly he had a revelation. What if it was the second part of the descriptors that was key? What if it was all about the economy?

As Karl's good buddy, Friedrich Engels put it,"the water mill gives you feudalism. The long bow gets you mercantile capitalism. (I think he might have thrown the stirrup in there, too, but maybe Lynn White was the first to come up with that particular complication.) Anyway, each stage in the evolution of human societies that is ostensibly about the expansion of civil rights and all that good stuff is actually determined by changes in technology, particularly as they reflect changes in the mode of warfare, but also other effects.

Say you like Marx's ideas, but think that he is an icky communist, what with all his emphasis on the "appropriation of surplus production" and all that emo stuff?

Replace the endogeneity with exogeneity! In other words, instead of the internal development of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, put in external shocks. What kind of shocks? Oh, you know, Black Plagues, Medieval Warm Periods, Little Ice Ages, Great Inflations, Dinosaur Killers (because with paleontology, you can have an entirely allegorical narrative with no reference to the contingencies of history at all!) Now it is no longer the rich people's fault if the rich are always getting richer and the poor are always getting poorer.

It's just stuff that happens. Anyway, it makes an alternative to proposing that history is all about exploitation.

 

The problem is that the contingencies of history do matter. This whole notion of an evolution of history through stages of society is rubbish. There was not an era in which a "feudal society" broke down and was replaced by another one. There was not some past era of theocracy, Chrisitian or otherwise.

To put it another way, feudalism is not a thing that happened.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

On the other hand, we have simillar laws and culture in Norway, and we've been a dictatorship since we started building huts. Granted, it's a dictatorship only on a technicality and it's only affected us once in the last century, but it's still a dictatorship. (Just to have noted the one incident: The democratically elected senate wanted to surrender to the germans, but the king used his right to overrule them.)

 

While it may seem like democracy is the best political system available, remember that millions thought the same about the Stalinist regime; including Americans, Norwegians, and Zimbabweans. And most people under the Stalinist regime thought they would be even worse of in America.

 

I had a point. The point was that no-one is unaffected by their society. I could not imagine living in a country where the supreme commander of the armed forces didn't have the right to overrule any political decisions any more than I could imagine living in a country where this right was used often. Americans, and Stalinists, seem quaint to me; but then the rest of this paragraph probably makes Norway look quaint for the rest of the world.

 

So, as for a generational ship, I see a bunch of problems with both feudal and democratic systems. The first is that a spaceship has a lot of maintenance requirements that would be difficult for the uneducated masses of a feudal society. And it gets worse once you reach your destination and suddenly need a generation of engineers, geologists, and whatever else one might need. Education (from illiterate to PHD) isn't done over the course of a generation.

 

So you'd want some kind of enlightened society. But a democracy? Over time democracies tend to cause the rise of populist parties, who keep their policies as vague as possible to try to gather as widespread support as possible (I'm presuming that starting up a party is relatively easy and that there are 6 - 8 major parties in existence at any one time. Don't get me started on two party systems.). These parties have enough leeway in their policies to do what ever they want once they have power; or optionally, overuse resources in an attempt to please everyone. When your leader is more worried about this week's polls than whether you'll have the materials you need in a century, your generation ship is in trouble. (If you'd argue that on a generation ship the two worries are related, remember that a 600 year trip has 150 administrations, and all you need is one bad egg...)

 

A bureaucratic rule is my suggestion. As materials and population remains mostly constant throughout the trip, a lot of the policy decisions can be made before one leaves port, and there's really not much reason to change anything over the course of the flight. As long as quotas are filled (both for food/oxygen production and population percentages with skill spec X), there really isn't anything for a ruler to do. Have some administrative bodies to handle the mundane stuff (emergency repair crews included). You'd want a voting system on stand by in case something does require it, and possibly a "captain" as a figurehead / someone who can take temporary command if things go to hell.

 

So, basicly, Norway without the democracy (the so-called "Big Thing" [Our senate is actually called the Big Thing. Cue obscure pun.]).

[Sundog]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

No, it's not a "thing that happened". It's a governmental system, notable for it's stability, that was the dominant form in Europe for a considerable length of time, as well as being well represented in civilized societies throughout Eurasia and North Africa. It was characterized by a "power pyramid" of devolving authority and evolving wealth through means of independently held titles of nobility passed on by bloodline, which distinguishes it from absolute monarchism, wherin titles are held at the Monarch's pleasure.

 

And I'm well aware of Hegel's concepts. Given that during each of his "levels" organisational structures radically different to that level blossomed and grew (the Roman Republic being the most glaring example), I've long since accepted they have no validity whatsoever.

[Kristopher]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Replace the endogeneity with exogeneity! In other words, instead of the internal development of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, put in external shocks. What kind of shocks? Oh, you know, Black Plagues, Medieval Warm Periods, Little Ice Ages, Great Inflations, Dinosaur Killers (because with paleontology, you can have an entirely allegorical narrative with no reference to the contingencies of history at all!) Now it is no longer the rich people's fault if the rich are always getting richer and the poor are always getting poorer.

It's just stuff that happens. Anyway, it makes an alternative to proposing that history is all about exploitation.

 

However, one can also understate the possible effects of majorly bad things hapening. There is a danger that one can overreact to "disasterism" by denying all possibility of any cataclysmic events ever.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Which some have used as an argument against spending all the time and money on creating generation ships in the first place.

 

Beyond imminent destruction, there are other reasons not to buy the "wait till FTL" argument, first and foremost being "when will FTL come?" According to all accepted science today, it won't, ever. Personally, I hope that it will, because I'd hate to think we're all going to have lived for nothing in the flash of a large red sun,

 

and I designed my game around the simple "Einstein was wrong" concept: that we did find a way to beat it. Most high SF is built that way, I suppose, but it's worth nothing that the basic premise is "he was wrong."

 

At any rate, in a real world situation, I would expect that by the time we were ready to undertake something like a G-ship, we will most likely have found more and more evidence to support the fact that FTL _won't_ happen.

[Jagged]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Ok' date=' I understand, though I still believe it might probably not be the case, unless power is given to some désincarnate being, like an AI computer or something else. [/quote']

 

*Jagged rushes off to hunt down his Paranoia rule books*

 

 

As a thought exercise do you think you could run a scenario with a Computer controlled government and player controlled trouble shooters without the players realising they are actually playing Hero: Paranoia?

[Nyrath]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Beyond imminent destruction' date=' there are other reasons not to buy the "wait till FTL" argument, first and foremost being "when will FTL come?" According to all accepted science today, it won't, ever. [/quote']

It is not just a "wait til FTL" argument.

It is a "wait until faster" argument.

 

If your generation ship has a maximum velocity of 1% c, and fifty years after it was launched Earth manages to make a generation ship with a maximum velocity of 2% c, the first ship will still find itself leap-frogged at the destination.

 

The second ship does not have to be FTL, it just has to be faster.

[Doc]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Say you like Marx's ideas' date=' but think that he is an icky communist, what with all his emphasis on the "appropriation of surplus production" and all that emo stuff?[/quote']

 

I never imagined a convinced communist to be a emo...

 

 

It's just stuff that happens. Anyway' date=' it makes an alternative to proposing that history is all about exploitation.[/quote']

 

Well, maybe we could just say that history is about human behavior, and as such, it would be about exploitation AND many other things, like war, the search for knowledge, etc, etc, etc...

 

 

The problem is that the contingencies of history do matter. This whole notion of an evolution of history through stages of society is rubbish. There was not an era in which a "feudal society" broke down and was replaced by another one. There was not some past era of theocracy, Chrisitian or otherwise.

To put it another way, feudalism is not a thing that happened.

 

An interesting relativist point of view...

 

 

On the other hand, we have simillar laws and culture in Norway, and we've been a dictatorship since we started building huts. Granted, it's a dictatorship only on a technicality and it's only affected us once in the last century, but it's still a dictatorship. (Just to have noted the one incident: The democratically elected senate wanted to surrender to the germans, but the king used his right to overrule them.)

 

While it may seem like democracy is the best political system available, remember that millions thought the same about the Stalinist regime; including Americans, Norwegians, and Zimbabweans. And most people under the Stalinist regime thought they would be even worse of in America.

 

I had a point. The point was that no-one is unaffected by their society. I could not imagine living in a country where the supreme commander of the armed forces didn't have the right to overrule any political decisions any more than I could imagine living in a country where this right was used often. Americans, and Stalinists, seem quaint to me; but then the rest of this paragraph probably makes Norway look quaint for the rest of the world.

 

So, as for a generational ship, I see a bunch of problems with both feudal and democratic systems. The first is that a spaceship has a lot of maintenance requirements that would be difficult for the uneducated masses of a feudal society. And it gets worse once you reach your destination and suddenly need a generation of engineers, geologists, and whatever else one might need. Education (from illiterate to PHD) isn't done over the course of a generation.

 

So you'd want some kind of enlightened society. But a democracy? Over time democracies tend to cause the rise of populist parties, who keep their policies as vague as possible to try to gather as widespread support as possible (I'm presuming that starting up a party is relatively easy and that there are 6 - 8 major parties in existence at any one time. Don't get me started on two party systems.). These parties have enough leeway in their policies to do what ever they want once they have power; or optionally, overuse resources in an attempt to please everyone. When your leader is more worried about this week's polls than whether you'll have the materials you need in a century, your generation ship is in trouble. (If you'd argue that on a generation ship the two worries are related, remember that a 600 year trip has 150 administrations, and all you need is one bad egg...)

 

A bureaucratic rule is my suggestion. As materials and population remains mostly constant throughout the trip, a lot of the policy decisions can be made before one leaves port, and there's really not much reason to change anything over the course of the flight. As long as quotas are filled (both for food/oxygen production and population percentages with skill spec X), there really isn't anything for a ruler to do. Have some administrative bodies to handle the mundane stuff (emergency repair crews included). You'd want a voting system on stand by in case something does require it, and possibly a "captain" as a figurehead / someone who can take temporary command if things go to hell.

 

So, basicly, Norway without the democracy (the so-called "Big Thing" [Our senate is actually called the Big Thing. Cue obscure pun.]).

 

There, I think there is a little too much relativism... You get a point Gnaskar, when you say people are affected by their own society; it's absolutely true. As a politologist, I always have to keep in mind that my ideas and conceptual background are inherently moderns and eurocentrists; it's not my fault, it's the way it is. Relativism is a necessity to critical thought.

 

But then again, if you only have relativism in your conceptual toolbox, you may end making gross comparisons. I'm pretty, pretty sure I'm better off living in Canada than, say, Birmania. (by the way, Birmania's people don't seem to be very fond of their government since a couple of years...). What I mean is that I don't think Norway is a dictature just because some aspects of its regime seem more authoritarian than other liberal ones (of course, I never even set a foot there, and I know it, but anyway...).

 

When I say I'd go for a democracy, I don't limit myself to the liberal representative and capitalist forms of it; there are a lot more options to explore, I think. Some of them may not evolve in the populist "void" debate we now know in contemporan liberalism...

 

 

No' date=' it's not a "thing that happened". It's a governmental [i']system, [/i]notable for it's stabilit

 

Was it really more stable than liberal regimes? Liberalism dawned in the 1600s and it still exists in its first country: England. It's a 400 years old regime; that is quite stable. Of course, it underwent a lot of crisis and transformation; it's only "evolution", it's normal. A thing that doesn't change, transform, "evolve" is a dead thing, or even a non existent one.

 

To be stable doesn't mean to be monolithic; feodalism transformed itself a lot, to. Wars, successions, anexions, etc. For instance, crusades weren't a permanent state of feodalism; they were a particuliar historical event, set in it their particuliar historical context with their particuliar historical consequences.

 

So a democrtic regime might as well be a stable one, even though it won't ever fix the society like an amber fossil.

 

 

Beyond imminent destruction' date=' there are other reasons not to buy the "wait till FTL" argument, first and foremost being "when will FTL come?" According to all accepted science today, it won't, ever. Personally, I hope that it will, because I'd hate to think we're all going to have lived for nothing in the flash of a large red sun, [/quote']

 

It might happen, and Einstien wouldn't necessarily need to be wrong:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

 

Of course, it's not certain either, but this represents to most realistic way to do so, I think...

 

 

*Jagged rushes off to hunt down his Paranoia rule books*

 

 

As a thought exercise do you think you could run a scenario with a Computer controlled government and player controlled trouble shooters without the players realising they are actually playing Hero: Paranoia?

 

He he he... There is indeed a great risk to see a serious generation ship type game "degenerate" in a paranoia like one, particularly if too much alcohol is implicated...!

[Nyrath]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

It might happen, and Einstien wouldn't necessarily need to be wrong:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Oh, not the tired old Alcubierre drive again.

In any event, as I said before, it is "Causality, Relativity, FTL travel: choose any two."

In this case you'd be choosing Relativity and FTL travel, but still jeopardizing Causality.

 

Alcubierre has some problems as well, such as requiring about eleven times as much energy as contained in the entire universe, and the fact that once a ship wraps itself in a warp, it needs somebody outside of the warp to free them.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that the Black Death killed off feudalism. But it certainly gave it one good hard kick in the testicles - in EUROPE. Chinese Feudalism experienced no such event.

 

The ultimate killer of Feudalism in Europe was a combination of long- and medium-distance trade, rise of the trading "middle class", military pressure from alternative lifestyles (notably the then-rising second islamic Renaissance) and the slow spread of education among the populace.

 

Likewise, neither do I assume that religion is destined to keep the populace down - but I defy anyone to say that it has not been used, often, for exactly that purpose.

 

"The Jersey palisades and the Midwest are both regions of the United States. It is amazing that so much wheat is produced in an area as small as northeastern New Jersey."

"A region of the United States is a place in the United States. Therefore, the Rocky Mountains are not in the United States."

The problem here is that we have a heuristic, "region of the United States," and I have assigned no content that belongs to it as of ontological necessity. By assuming ontological necessity, we get into all kinds of confusion. "Feudalism" is a heuristic that we use to label the period between the end of the "Dark Ages" and the "Renaissance." Depending on when we decide either of those other two heuristics began and ended, we get differing timescapes for "feudalism," but it is pretty clear that it lasted a long time.

So it must have been stable, right?

And, since it ended in (say), 1600, we know what ended it: anything that happened in, say, 1550-1600. (Choose your period depending on who you want to be in the Renaissance, and you should be good to go on this one.)

Of course, we haven't defined "Feudalism" yet, except to say, in general terms, when it happened. Well, surely the contents of the word must be captured by what happened during it. Thus we take various things that we take as characteristic as feudalism, and attach them to the label as of ontological necessity. We narrow down our definition by removing anything also characteristic of other eras (science, education, capitalism, patriarchy) and what is left must be characteristic of feudalism as essential characteristics.

Our argument, of course, is about as solid as saying that since we backed through a door, our face must be on our butt, but at least it makes for an excuse for those who like staring at....

[Doc]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Oh, not the tired old Alcubierre drive again.

In any event, as I said before, it is "Causality, Relativity, FTL travel: choose any two."

In this case you'd be choosing Relativity and FTL travel, but still jeopardizing Causality.

 

Indeed, but, hey, why not...

 

 

Alcubierre has some problems as well' date=' such as requiring about eleven times as much energy as contained in the entire universe, and the fact that once a ship wraps itself in a warp, it needs somebody outside of the warp to free them.[/quote']

 

Humm... Two "details" I wasn't aware of. Why is the universe so refractary to sci-fi? (!)

[Zeropoint]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Do we really NEED causality? Can we just have a big fine for violating it or something?

[Sundog]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

"The Jersey palisades and the Midwest are both regions of the United States. It is amazing that so much wheat is produced in an area as small as northeastern New Jersey."

"A region of the United States is a place in the United States. Therefore, the Rocky Mountains are not in the United States."

The problem here is that we have a heuristic, "region of the United States," and I have assigned no content that belongs to it as of ontological necessity. By assuming ontological necessity, we get into all kinds of confusion. "Feudalism" is a heuristic that we use to label the period between the end of the "Dark Ages" and the "Renaissance." Depending on when we decide either of those other two heuristics began and ended, we get differing timescapes for "feudalism," but it is pretty clear that it lasted a long time.

So it must have been stable, right?

And, since it ended in (say), 1600, we know what ended it: anything that happened in, say, 1550-1600. (Choose your period depending on who you want to be in the Renaissance, and you should be good to go on this one.)

Of course, we haven't defined "Feudalism" yet, except to say, in general terms, when it happened. Well, surely the contents of the word must be captured by what happened during it. Thus we take various things that we take as characteristic as feudalism, and attach them to the label as of ontological necessity. We narrow down our definition by removing anything also characteristic of other eras (science, education, capitalism, patriarchy) and what is left must be characteristic of feudalism as essential characteristics.

Our argument, of course, is about as solid as saying that since we backed through a door, our face must be on our butt, but at least it makes for an excuse for those who like staring at....

 

You might want to actually read my last post. Defining Feudalism entirely separately from the period or location isn't even difficult.

[John-Walton]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

has anyone mentioned Harlequins Moon ?

 

Niven

[Nyrath]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Do we really NEED causality? Can we just have a big fine for violating it or something?

 

The trouble with getting rid of causality is that it is the basis of logic and science.

 

Put it this way: would you want to play a game of Star Hero if the rules were the same as Calvin Ball?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

You might want to actually read my last post. Defining Feudalism entirely separately from the period or location isn't even difficult.

 

 

Yes, it is. Your definition does not apply to many "feudal" societies,* and does apply to many that are not. It is these kinds of difficulties that lead me (and lots of other people) to label it a heuristic rather than an ontologically valid category. http://www.amazon.ca/Serf-Knight-Historian-Dominique-Barthelemy/dp/0801475600/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1259263294&sr=8-1-fkmr0

 

 

 

*No, seriously. It might seem like blood descent is a no-brainer, but anthropologists tend to prefer a "dual-pole" model, where the same region and people coalesce around a clan-based idea of family-as-political-organisation in one situation, and a lineage-based one in another. Basically, in periods of disorder, you get clans ("Geschlechten," stirps, whatever), because they mobilise larger armies. In stable societies, it is lineage, and property ownership that matters more.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

The trouble with getting rid of causality is that it is the basis of logic and science.

 

Put it this way: would you want to play a game of Star Hero if the rules were the same as Calvin Ball?

 

So, if causality was violated one time, or if it were shown that causality COULD be violated, suddenly all science would stop working? Logical arguments which worked in the past would suddenly fail?

 

If it turns out that we don't have iron-clad causality, then we never did, but we managed to do science anyway.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

People have tried to do away with causality in the past.... crazy Neo-Kantians. Supposedly, a "lawlikeness of nature," which is anyways necessary for human reason to be possible, will suffice.

Frankly, I prefer your suggestion that we just fine people for violations.

[McCoy]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

So, if causality was violated one time, or if it were shown that causality COULD be violated, suddenly all science would stop working? Logical arguments which worked in the past would suddenly fail?

 

If it turns out that we don't have iron-clad causality, then we never did, but we managed to do science anyway.

No, If it turns out that we don't have iron-clad causality, then we never did, and what we thought was science was just a series of coincidences. Maybe it will work next time, maybe not.

[Nyrath]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

So' date=' if causality was violated one time, or if it were shown that causality COULD be violated, suddenly all science would stop working? Logical arguments which worked in the past would suddenly fail?[/quote']

Yes.

You take a mathematical statement, and by using a mathematical proof, you demonstrate that it is necessarily true. The statement is now a theorem, and can be used to prove other mathematical statements.

Without causality, nothing can be proven. So suddenly all of the theorems vanish and with them everything that depended on them.

 

Everything that we called science is now nothing but coincidences which may or may not repeat.

[Nyrath]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

So' date=' if causality was violated one time, or if it were shown that causality COULD be violated, suddenly all science would stop working? Logical arguments which worked in the past would suddenly fail?[/quote']

There are larger issues.

 

FTL with Relativity leads to causality violations. Consider a duel with tachyon pistols. Two duelists, A and B, are to stand back to back, then start out at 0.866 lightspeed for 8 seconds, turn, and fire. Tachyon pistol rounds move so fast, they are instantaneous for all practical purposes.

http://sheol.org/throopw/tachyon-pistols.html

According to one frame of reference, A's pistol kills B four seconds before B can fire.

According to another frame of reference, B's pistol kills A four seconds before A can fire.

 

So which one is dead?

 

Say you jump into the good FTL starship Sky Trash at 11:00 am, travel FTL in such a manner that you travel back in time to 9:00 where the younger Sky Trash is sitting on the launch pad, and use the laser cannon to blow the younger Sky Trash into itty bits.

 

Now, if the younger Sky Trash is destroyed, you could not have entered it at 11:00 to travel back in time to destroy it. So it could not have been destroyed.

But if it was not destroyed, you entered it at 11:00 and traveled back in time to destroy it. So it is destroyed.

 

Is Sky Trash destroyed or not?

[Sundog]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

Yes, it is. Your definition does not apply to many "feudal" societies,* and does apply to many that are not. It is these kinds of difficulties that lead me (and lots of other people) to label it a heuristic rather than an ontologically valid category. http://www.amazon.ca/Serf-Knight-Historian-Dominique-Barthelemy/dp/0801475600/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1259263294&sr=8-1-fkmr0

 

 

*No, seriously. It might seem like blood descent is a no-brainer, but anthropologists tend to prefer a "dual-pole" model, where the same region and people coalesce around a clan-based idea of family-as-political-organisation in one situation, and a lineage-based one in another. Basically, in periods of disorder, you get clans ("Geschlechten," stirps, whatever), because they mobilise larger armies. In stable societies, it is lineage, and property ownership that matters more.

 

I don't doubt what you're saying, but the reason many "feudal" societies don't match the definition is because people misuse the term. Feudalism is a specific, not a general - many of the governments people label as "feudal" are nothing of the kind, being Absolute Monarchies or even Military Dictatorships.

 

In fact, true feudalism is just as you say - more or less a clan-based structure, taken to an advanced level. The important, and I would say defining, aspect of feudal systems is the quality of self-direction amongst the nobility - while they may have fealty to a ruler, said ruler lacks the power to place or replace nobility as he sees fit, but must accept their accession and their wielding of power in their own rights, NOT merely as the ruler's proxies.

[Kristopher]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

No' date=' If it turns out that we don't have iron-clad causality, then [i']we never did[/i], and what we thought was science was just a series of coincidences. Maybe it will work next time, maybe not.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how the "causality" of repeatable science experiments is tied to the "causality" of spacetime and light speed.

 

(And why do I keep hearing/reading about quantum physics leading to the conclusion that technically, anything could happen, it's just bleeding unlikely for anything "strange" to happen?)

[Kristopher]

Re: Generation starships and their internal society structure

 

There are larger issues.

 

FTL with Relativity leads to causality violations. Consider a duel with tachyon pistols. Two duelists, A and B, are to stand back to back, then start out at 0.866 lightspeed for 8 seconds, turn, and fire. Tachyon pistol rounds move so fast, they are instantaneous for all practical purposes.

http://sheol.org/throopw/tachyon-pistols.html

According to one frame of reference, A's pistol kills B four seconds before B can fire.

According to another frame of reference, B's pistol kills A four seconds before A can fire.

 

So which one is dead?

 

They both are. Both fired, both hit, both died.

 

Say you jump into the good FTL starship Sky Trash at 11:00 am' date=' travel FTL in such a manner that you travel back in time to 9:00 where the younger [i']Sky Trash[/i] is sitting on the launch pad, and use the laser cannon to blow the younger Sky Trash into itty bits.

 

Now, if the younger Sky Trash is destroyed, you could not have entered it at 11:00 to travel back in time to destroy it. So it could not have been destroyed.

But if it was not destroyed, you entered it at 11:00 and traveled back in time to destroy it. So it is destroyed.

 

Is Sky Trash destroyed or not?

 

How do you come back at 9:00am to begin with?